Return of Alexander to the village. Goncharov Ivan Alexandrovich

The morning was beautiful. The lake in the village of Grachi, familiar to the reader, was slightly rippling from a light swell. Eyes involuntarily pinched from the blinding brilliance sun rays, sparkling now with diamond, now with emerald sparks in the water. Weeping birches bathed their branches in the lake, and in some places the banks were overgrown with sedge, in which large yellow flowers hid, resting on wide floating leaves. Light clouds sometimes ran into the sun; suddenly it seems to turn away from the Rooks; then the lake, and the grove, and the village - everything will instantly darken; one distance shines brightly. The cloud will pass - the lake will shine again, the fields will shed like gold.
Anna Pavlovna has been sitting on the balcony since five o'clock. What caused it: sunrise, fresh air or the singing of a lark? Not! she does not take her eyes off the road that goes through the grove. Agrafena came to ask for the keys. Anna Pavlovna did not look at her, and without taking her eyes off the road, handed over the keys and did not even ask why. The cook appeared: she, also without looking at him, gave him many orders. The other day the table was ordered for ten people.
Anna Pavlovna was left alone again. Suddenly her eyes sparkled; all the forces of her soul and body passed into vision: something blackened on the road. Someone is driving, but quietly, slowly. Oh! it's a cart coming down the mountain. Anna Pavlovna frowned.
- Here's someone who suffered a hard one! she grumbled, “no, to go around; everyone jumps in here.
With displeasure, she sank back into her chair and again, with trembling expectation, fixed her eyes on the grove, not noticing anything around. And there was something to notice around: the scenery began to change significantly. midday air, heated by the sultry rays of the sun, became stuffy and heavy. So the sun hid. It became dark. And the forest, and distant villages, and grass - everything was clothed in an indifferent, some kind of ominous color.
Anna Pavlovna woke up and looked up. My God! From the west stretched, like a living monster, a black, ugly spot with a copper tint along the edges and quickly approached the village and the grove, stretching like huge wings on the sides. Everything has become desolate in nature. The cows lowered their heads; the horses fanned their tails, flared their nostrils and snorted, shaking their manes. The dust under their hooves did not rise up, but crumbled heavily, like sand, under the wheels. The cloud was moving ominously. Soon a distant rumble slowly rolled over.
Everything was silent, as if waiting for something unprecedented. Where did these birds go, which so briskly fluttered and sang in the sun? Where are the insects that buzzed so variously in the grass? Everything was hidden and silent, and soulless objects seemed to share the ominous foreboding. The trees stopped swaying and touching each other with boughs; they straightened up; only from time to time they leaned their tops towards each other, as if mutually warning themselves in a whisper about imminent danger. A cloud has already overlaid the horizon and formed some sort of leaden, impenetrable vault. Everyone in the village tried to get home on time. There was a moment of general, solemn silence. A fresh breeze swept from the forest like an advanced herald, breathed coolness into the face of the traveler, rustled through the leaves, slammed the gate in the hut in passing, and, turning the dust in the street, died down in the bushes. A stormy whirlwind rushes after him, slowly moving a column of dust along the road; here he burst into the village, threw off several rotten boards from the fence, demolished the thatched roof, raised the skirt of a peasant woman carrying water and drove roosters and hens along the street, fanning their tails.
Rushed. Again silence. Everything is fussing and hiding; only a stupid ram does not foresee anything: he indifferently chews his cud, standing in the middle of the street, and looks in one direction, not understanding the general alarm; Yes, a feather with a straw, circling along the road, is trying to keep up with the whirlwind.
Two, three large drops of rain fell - and suddenly lightning flashed. The old man got up from the mound and hurriedly led the little grandchildren to the hut; the old woman, crossing herself, hastily closed the window.
Thunder roared and, drowning out the human noise, solemnly, regally rolled through the air. The frightened horse broke away from the hitching post and rushes with a rope into the field; the peasant pursues him in vain. And the rain just pours and cuts, more and more often, and crushes into the roofs and windows harder and harder. A little white hand timidly sticks out an object of tender cares - flowers - onto the balcony.
At the first clap of thunder, Anna Pavlovna crossed herself and left the balcony.
“No, there’s nothing to look forward to today,” she said with a sigh, “because of the storm I’ve stopped somewhere, except towards night.”
Suddenly, the sound of wheels was heard, only not from the grove, but from the other side. Someone entered the yard. Adueva's heart sank.
“How is it from there? she thought, didn't he want to come secretly? No, it's not a road."
She didn't know what to think; but soon everything was explained. A minute later Anton Ivanovich entered. His hair was silver with grey; he himself grew fat; cheeks swollen from inactivity and overeating. He was wearing the same frock coat, the same wide pantaloons.
“I’ve been waiting for you, waiting for you, Anton Ivanovich,” Anna Pavlovna began, “I thought you wouldn’t be, I was in despair.
- It's a sin to think! to someone else, mother - so! you won’t get me to anyone ... but not to you. I lingered through no fault of my own: after all, I now ride on one horse.
– What is it? Anna Pavlovna asked absently, moving towards the window.
- Why, mother, the pegashka limped from the christening at Pavel Savich: the difficult coachman managed to put the old barn door through the groove ... poor people, you see! There is no new board! And on the door it was a nail or a hook, or something - the evil one knows them! The horse stepped aside and shied away and almost broke my neck ... sort of arrows! Since then, he has been lame ... After all, there are such stingers! You won’t believe, mother, that this is in their house: in another almshouse it’s better to keep the people. And in Moscow, on the Kuznetsk bridge, every year, ten thousand and they will squander!
Anna Pavlovna listened to him absently and shook her head slightly when he had finished.
- But I received a letter from Sashenka, Anton Ivanovich! she interrupted, “she writes that it will be around the twentieth: so I didn’t remember for joy.
- I heard, mother: Proshka said, but at first I didn’t make out what he was saying: I thought that he had already arrived; With joy, I was thrown into a sweat.
- God bless you, Anton Ivanovich, that you love us.
- Still not to love! Why, I carried Alexander Fedorych in my arms: it was the same as my own.
- Thank you, Anton Ivanovich: God will reward you! And I almost don’t sleep the next night and don’t let people sleep: it’s unequal to come, and we all sleep - it will be good! Yesterday and the third day I walked to the grove, and today I would go, but damn old age overcomes. At night, insomnia was exhausting. Sit down, Anton Ivanovich. Yes, you are all soaked: would you like to have a drink and breakfast? It may be too late to dine: we will wait for our dear guest.
- Well, have a bite to eat. And then I, to be honest, had breakfast.
- Where did you do it?
- And at the crossroads at Marya Karpovna he stopped. After all, they had to pass by: more for the horse than for himself: he gave her a rest. Is it a joke to wave twelve miles in the current heat! By the way, I ate there. It’s good that he didn’t listen: he didn’t stay, no matter how they kept him, otherwise a thunderstorm would have captured him there for the whole day.
- What, how is Marya Karpovna doing?
- God bless! bows to you.
- Thank you very much; and then the daughter, Sofya Mikhailovna, with her husband, what?
- Nothing, mother; already the sixth child in the campaign. Weeks through two expect. They asked me to visit around that time. And in their own house, poverty is such that they would not even look. Tell me, would it be up to the children? so no: right there!
- What do you!
- By God! in the chambers the jambs were all crooked; the floor just walks underfoot; flows through the roof. And there’s nothing to fix it for, but soup, cheesecakes and lamb will be served on the table - that’s all for you! But how diligently they call!
- There, for my Sashenka, she strove, such a crow!
- Where is she, mother, for such a falcon! I can't wait to take a look: tea, what a handsome man! I’m savvy, Anna Pavlovna: didn’t he get himself some princess or countess there, but isn’t he going to ask for your blessing and invite you to the wedding?
- What are you, Anton Ivanovich! said Anna Pavlovna, thrilled with joy.
- Right!
– Ah! you, my dear, God bless you!.. Yes! it was out of my mind: I wanted to tell you, and I forgot: I think, I think, what it is, it just spins on the tongue; that's after all, what good, so it would have passed. Why don't you have breakfast first, or tell me now?
“It doesn’t matter, mother, even during breakfast: I won’t utter a single piece ... not a word, I mean.
“Well, then,” Anna Pavlovna began, when breakfast was brought and Anton Ivanovich sat down at the table, “and I see ...
"Well, aren't you going to eat it yourself?" asked Anton Ivanovich.
- AND! before food am I now? I won't even get a piece down my throat; I haven't even finished my cup of tea. So I see in a dream that I seem to be sitting this way, and so, opposite me, Agrafena is standing with a tray. I say as if to her: “Well, they say, I say, do you have an empty tray, Agrafena?” - and she is silent, and she herself looks all at the door. “Oh, my mothers! - I think in a dream to myself, - why did she stare her eyes there? So I began to look ... I look: suddenly Sashenka comes in, so sad, came up to me and said, yes, as if in reality he says: “Goodbye, he says, mother, I’m going far, over there,” and pointed to the lake, - and more, he says, I will not come. “Where is it, my friend?” I ask, and my heart aches. He seems to be silent, but he looks at me so strangely and pitifully. "But where did you come from, my dear?" I feel like I'm asking again. And he, cordial, sighed and again pointed to the lake. “From the pool,” he said in a barely audible voice, “from the water ones.” I was so shaking all over - and woke up. My pillow is full of tears; and in reality I can’t come to my senses; I sit on the bed, and I myself cry, and I fill up, cry. As she got up, she now lit a lamp in front of the Mother of God of Kazan: perhaps she, our merciful intercessor, will save him from all sorts of troubles and misfortunes. Such a doubt brought, by golly! I can't figure out what that means? Would something happen to him? The storm is...
- It's good, mother, to cry in a dream: for good! - said Anton Ivanovich, breaking an egg on a plate, - there will certainly be tomorrow.
- And I was thinking whether we should go after breakfast to the grove, to meet him; somehow would have dragged; yes, after all, what kind of dirt has suddenly become.
- No, today will not be: I have a sign!
At that moment, the distant sounds of a bell were heard on the wind and suddenly stopped. Anna Pavlovna held her breath.
– Ah! she said, easing her chest with a sigh, “and I was thinking…
Suddenly again.
- Oh my God! no bell? she said and rushed to the balcony.
- No, - answered Anton Ivanovich, - this is a foal grazing nearby with a bell around its neck: I saw the road. I also scared him, otherwise I would have wandered into the rye. What do you not order to hobble?
Suddenly the bell rang as if under the very balcony and was filled with louder and louder.
- Ah, fathers! so it is: here, here it goes! It's him, he! cried Anna Pavlovna. - Ahah! Run, Anton Ivanovich! Where are people? Where is Agrafena? There is no one! .. as if he is going to someone else's house, my God!
She was completely lost. And the bell rang already as if in the room.
Anton Ivanovich jumped out from behind the table.
- He! he! - shouted Anton Ivanovich, - out and Yevsey on the goats! Where is your image, bread and salt? Give soon! What am I going to take out to him on the porch? How is it possible without bread and salt? there is a sign ... What a mess you have! nobody thought! But why are you yourself, Anna Pavlovna, are you standing, not going to meet you? Run faster!..
- I can not! - she said with difficulty, - her legs were paralyzed.
And with these words, she sank into a chair. Anton Ivanovich grabbed a piece of bread from the table, put it on a plate, put down a salt shaker, and was about to rush through the door.
“Nothing is ready! he grumbled.
But three footmen and two girls burst into the same doors towards him.
- It's coming! rides! I arrived! they shouted, pale, frightened, as if robbers had arrived.
Alexander followed them.
- Sashenka! you are my friend! .. - exclaimed Anna Pavlovna and suddenly stopped and looked in bewilderment at Alexander.
- Where is Sasha? she asked.
- Yes, it's me, mama! he answered, kissing her hand.
- You?
She looked at him intently.
Are you really my friend? she said and hugged him tightly. Then suddenly she looked at him again.
- What's wrong with you? Are you unwell? she asked anxiously, not releasing him from her embrace.
- Hey, mommy.
- Healthy! What happened to you, my dear? Is this how I let you go?
She pressed it to her heart and wept bitterly. She kissed him on the head, cheeks, eyes.
- Where are your hairs? how silk were! - she said through tears, - her eyes shone like two stars; cheeks - blood with milk; all of you were like a bulk apple! To know, dashing people have exhausted, envied your beauty and my happiness! What was your uncle watching? And she gave it from hand to hand, like a good person! Didn't know how to save the treasure! You are my dove!
The old woman wept and showered Alexander with caresses.
“It can be seen that tears in a dream are not good!” thought Anton Ivanovich.
- What are you, mother, screaming over him, as if over the dead? - he whispered, - it's not good, there is a sign.
- Hello, Alexander Fedorych! - he said, - God also brought me to see you in this world.
Alexander silently gave him his hand. Anton Ivanovich went to see if everything had been dragged out of the wagon, then he began to call the servants to greet the master. But everyone was already crowding in the anteroom and in the passage. He arranged everyone in order and taught how to greet someone: who to kiss the master’s hand, who’s shoulder, who only the floor of the dress, and what to say at the same time. He completely drove one guy away, telling him: “Go ahead, wash your face and wipe your nose.”
Yevsey, girded with a belt, covered in dust, greeted the servants; she surrounded him. He gave St. Petersburg gifts: someone a silver ring, someone a birch snuffbox. Seeing Agrafena, he stopped, as if petrified, and looked at her in silence, with stupid delight. She glanced at him sideways, frowningly, but immediately involuntarily betrayed herself: she laughed with joy, then started to cry, but suddenly turned away and frowned.
- Why are you keeping silent? - she said, - what a blockhead: and does not say hello!
But he couldn't say anything. He approached her with the same stupid smile. She barely let him hug her.
“I brought it not easy,” she said angrily, looking at him furtively from time to time; but in her eyes and in her smile the greatest joy was expressed. - Tea, the Petersburgers then ... twisted you and the master there? Vish, what a mustache he has grown!
He took a small paper box out of his pocket and handed it to her. There were bronze earrings. Then he took out a package from the bag, in which a large handkerchief was wrapped.
She snatched it up and nimbly stuffed it, without looking, both into the cupboard.
"Show me the gifts, Agrafena Ivanovna," said some of the servants.
- Well, what is there to see? What hasn't been removed? Get out of here! What are you up to here? she shouted at them.
- And here's another! said Yevsey, handing her another package.
- Show me, show me! - Some have arrived.
Agrafena ripped open the paper, and several decks of played, but still almost new, cards fell out.
- I found something to bring! - said Agrafena, - do you think I only care what to play? how! Invented that: I will play with you!
She also hid the cards. An hour later Yevsey was again sitting in his old place, between the table and the stove.
- God! what peace! - he said, now squeezing, now stretching out his legs, - what's the matter here! And here, in St. Petersburg, it's just hard labor! Is there something to eat, Agrafena Ivanovna? Nothing has been eaten since the last station.
“Are you out of your habit yet?” On the! You see how he started; Apparently, you weren't fed at all there.
Alexander went through all the rooms, then through the garden, stopping at every bush, at every bench. His mother accompanied him. She, peering into his pale face, sighed, but was afraid to cry; she was frightened by Anton Ivanovich. She asked her son about life, but she could not find the reason why he became thin, pale and where his hair had gone. She offered him food and drink, but he, refusing everything, said that he was tired from the road and wanted to sleep.
Anna Pavlovna looked to see if the bed was well made, scolded the girl, which was harsh, made her re-lay it with her, and did not leave until Alexander lay down. She went out on tiptoe, threatening people not to dare to speak and breathe aloud and go without boots. Then she ordered Yevsey to be sent to her. Agrafena came with him. Yevsey bowed at the lady's feet and kissed her hand.
- What happened to Sasha? she asked menacingly, - what did he look like - huh?
Yevsey was silent.
- Why are you silent? - said Agrafena, - do you hear, the lady asks you?
- Why did he lose weight? - said Anna Pavlovna, - where did his hairs go?
“I don’t know, madame! - said Yevsey, - lordly business!
- You can't know! What were you watching?
Yevsey did not know what to say, and remained silent.
- Found someone to believe, madam! - said Agrafena, looking lovingly at Yevsey, - it would be good for a man! What did you do there? Speak to the lady! Here it will be for you!
- Am I not zealous, madam! said Yevsey timidly, looking first at the mistress, then at Agrafena, “he served faithfully, if you please ask Arkhipych.
- Which Archipych?
- At the local janitor.
- You see, what a fence! Agrafena noted. - Why are you listening to him, ma'am! Lock him in a barn - that's what he would know!
“I’m ready not only for my masters to fulfill their master’s will,” continued Yevsey, “at least to die now!” I'll take the image off the wall...
- All of you are good in words! Anna Pavlovna said. - And how to do it, so you're not here! It can be seen that he looked after the master well: he allowed him, my dear, to lose his health! You watched! Here you will see me...
She threatened him.
“Didn’t I look, madame?” At the age of eight, only one shirt from the master's underwear disappeared, otherwise my worn-out ones are intact.
- Where did she disappear to? Anna Pavlovna asked angrily.
- The washerwoman disappeared. I then reported to Alexander Fedorych to deduct from her, but they said nothing.
“You see, the bastard,” Anna Pavlovna observed, “was seduced by that good linen!
- How not to look! Yevsey continued. “God forbid everyone to do their job this way. They used to still deign to rest, and I run off to the bakery ...
What kind of buns did he eat?
- White s, good ones.
- I know that they are white; yes sweet?
- What a pole! - said Agrafena, - and he doesn’t know how to say a word, and even a Petersburg one!
- Not at all with! - answered Yevsey, - Lenten.
- Lenten! oh you villain! murderer! robber! said Anna Pavlovna, blushing with anger. - You didn’t guess that sweet rolls to buy him? but looked!
- Yes, madam, they did not order ...
- They didn't order it! It doesn't matter to him, my dear, no matter what you put in - he eats everything. And it didn't even occur to you? Have you forgotten that he ate all the sweet rolls here? Buy lean rolls! Is that right, you took the money to another place? Here I am you! What else? speak...
“After they’ve had tea,” continued Yevsey, timidly, “they’ll go to office, and I’ll get my boots: I’ve been cleaning all morning, I’ll clean everything, sometimes three times; I'll take it off tonight and clean it up again. How, madam, I did not look: yes, I have never seen such boots from any of the gentlemen. Pyotr Ivanitch's are worse cleaned, even though there are three lackeys.
- Why is he like this? said Anna Pavlovna, softening somewhat.
- It must be from writing, madam.
- Did you write a lot?
– Lots of s; everyday.
- What did he write? papers, or what?
- Must be papers.
– Why didn’t you calm down?
- I calmed down, madam: “Don’t sit, they say, I say, Alexander Fedorych, if you please go for a walk: the weather is good, many gentlemen are walking. What is the writing? put a breast on: mama, they say, they will become angry ... "
- And what is he?
- “Go, they say, get out: you are a fool!”
- And a real fool! said Agrafena.
Yevsey glanced at her at the same time, then again continued to look at the mistress.
- Well, didn’t uncle calm him down? Anna Pavlovna asked.
"Where to, ma'am!" they will come, but if they are found idle, they will pounce. “What do you say you don’t do anything? Here, they say, it's not a village, you have to work, they say, and not lie on your side! Everything, they say, is a dream! And then they choose...
- How will they choose?
- "Province ..." they say ... and they will go, and they will go ... they scold so much that sometimes they would not listen.
- So that it was empty! said Anna Pavlovna, spitting. - They would shoot their people, and they would scold them! What to appease, and he ... Lord, my God, the merciful king! she exclaimed, “who can you hope for now, if your relatives are worse than a wild beast?” The dog, and she takes care of her puppies, and then the uncle exhausted his own nephew! And you, such a fool, could not tell your uncle that he would not deign to bark at the master like that, but would roll away. He would shout at his wife, such a scoundrel! You see, I found someone to scold: “Work, work!” Himself would have circled over the work! Dog, right, dog, God forgive me! Kholopa found a job!
This was followed by silence.
- How long has Sashenka become so thin? she asked afterwards.
“Three years now,” answered Yevsey, “Alexander Fedorych began to be painfully bored and took little food; suddenly began to lose weight, lose weight, melted like a candle.
- Why did you miss it?
“God knows them, ma'am. Pyotr Ivanovich deigned to tell them something about this; I was listening, but surprisingly: I did not make out.
– What did he say?
Yevsey thought for a minute, apparently trying to remember something, and moving his lips.
- They called them something, but I forgot ...
Anna Pavlovna and Agrafena looked at him and waited impatiently for an answer.
“Well?” said Anna Pavlovna.
Yevsey was silent.
“Come on, spit it out, say something,” added Agrafena, “the lady is waiting.”
- Ra ... it seems, disappointed ... bathed ... - Yevsey finally uttered.
Anna Pavlovna looked in bewilderment at Agrafena, Agrafena at Yevsey, Yevsey at both of them, and everyone was silent.
- How? Anna Pavlovna asked.
- Razo ... disappointed, just like that, I remembered! Yevsey answered in a decisive voice.
– What kind of misfortune is this? God! illness, right? Anna Pavlovna asked melancholy.
“Ah, is that not spoiled, madam?” Agrafena said hastily.
Anna Pavlovna turned pale and spat.
- To you pip on the tongue! - she said. – Did he go to church?
Yevsey hesitated a little.
“It’s impossible to say, madam, that they went painfully ...” he answered hesitantly, “it can almost be said that they didn’t go ... there, gentlemen, honor, they don’t go to church much ...
- That's why! said Anna Pavlovna with a sigh and crossed herself. – Apparently, only my prayers were not pleasing to God. The dream is not false: as if it had escaped from the pool, my dear!
Here came Anton Ivanovich.
"Dinner will get cold, Anna Pavlovna," he said, "isn't it time to wake up Alexander Fyodoritch?"
“No, no, God forbid! - she answered, - he did not order himself to be woken up. “Eat, he says, alone: ​​I have no appetite; I'll sleep better, he says: sleep will strengthen me; unless I want to in the evening. So here's what you do, Anton Ivanovich: don't be angry with me, old woman: I'll go and light the lamp and pray while Sashenka is resting; I have no time for food; and you eat alone.
- All right, mother, all right, I will do it: rely on me.
“Yes, do a good deed,” she continued, “you are our friend, you love us so much, call Yevsey and ask in a way why Sashenka became thoughtful and thin and where did his hairs go? You are a man: it is more agile for you ... did they upset him there? after all, there are such villains in the world ... find out everything.
- All right, mother, all right: I will try, I will find out all the ins and outs. Send Yevsey to me while I'm having dinner - I'll do everything!
- Hello, Yevsey! - he said, sitting down at the table and tucking a napkin into his tie, - how are you?
- Hello, sir. What is our life? bad s. You've improved so much here.
Anton Ivanovich spat.
- Do not jinx it, brother: how long before sin? he added, and began to eat cabbage soup.
- Well, what are you doing there? - he asked.
- Yes, so with: it doesn’t hurt well.
- Tea, is the provisions good? What did you eat?
– What with? you take jelly and a cold pie in the shop - that's dinner!
- How, in a shop? and your oven?
“We didn’t cook at home. There, unmarried gentlemen do not keep a table.
- What you! said Anton Ivanovich, putting down the spoon.
- Right with: and the master was worn from the tavern.
What a gypsy life! a! don't lose weight! Come on, have a drink!
- Thank you very much, sir! For your health!
Then silence followed. Anton Ivanovich ate.
- How much are the cucumbers? he asked, placing a cucumber on his plate.
- Forty kopecks tens.
- Is it full?
- God bless; why, sir, it’s shameful to say: sometimes they bring pickles from Moscow.
- Oh, my God! well! don't lose weight!
- Where can you see such a cucumber! Yevsey continued, pointing to one cucumber, “and you won’t see it in a dream!” trifle, rubbish: here they wouldn’t even look, but there the gentlemen are eating! In a rare house, sir, bread is baked. And this is there to store cabbage, salt beef, wet mushrooms - there is nothing in the plant.
Anton Ivanovich shook his head, but said nothing, because his mouth was full.
- How? he asked, chewing.
- Everything is in the shop; and what is not in the shop, so right there somewhere in the sausage shop; but there is not, so in the confectionery; and if you don't have anything in a pastry shop, go to an English shop: the French have everything!
Silence.
- Well, what about piglets? asked Anton Ivanitch, taking almost half a piglet on a plate.
– I don’t know since; they didn’t buy: something is expensive, two rubles, it seems ...
- Ah ah ah! don't lose weight! such a cost!
- Their good gentlemen eat little and eat: more and more officials.
Again silence.
- Well, how are you there: bad? asked Anton Ivanovich.
- And God forbid, how bad! Here is some kind of kvass, and there the beer is thinner; and from kvass it’s like boiling in the stomach all day long! Only one wax is good: it's a wax, you won't see enough of it! and what a smell: I would have eaten it!
- What you!
- By God, s.
Silence.
- Well, how is it? asked Anton Ivanovich, having chewed.
- Yes, s.
- Did you eat badly?
- Badly. Alexander Fedorych ate like this, just a little: they completely lost the habit of eating; at dinner they don't even eat a pound of bread.
- Do not lose weight! - said Anton Ivanovich. All because it's expensive, right?
- And it's expensive, and it's not customary to eat your fill every day. They eat the Lord as if furtively, once a day, and then if they have time, at five o'clock, sometimes at six; otherwise they will intercept something, and that will end. This is their last business: first they will redo all the affairs, and then they will eat.
- That's life! - said Anton Ivanovich. - Do not lose weight! wonder how you didn't die there! And the whole century so?
- No, since: on holidays, gentlemen, how they gather sometimes, so, God forbid, how they eat! They’ll go to some German tavern, and hear about a hundred rubles, and they’ll eat it. And they drink what - God forbid! worse than our brother! Here, it used to be that guests would gather at Pyotr Ivanovich's: they would sit down at the table at one o'clock at six, and get up in the morning at four o'clock.
Anton Ivanovich widened his eyes.
- What you! - he said, - and everyone eats?
- Everyone eats!
- If only to see: not ours! What do they eat?
“Well, sir, there’s nothing to look at! You don’t know what you eat: the Germans will put God knows what in the dish: you won’t want to take it in your mouth. And their pepper is not like that; pour something from overseas bottles into the sauce ... Once the cook Pyotr Ivanych treated me to the master's dish, I felt sick for three days. I looked, an olive in the dish: I thought, like an olive here; saw through - look: and there is a small fish; it became disgusting, spat out; took another - and there the same; Yes, in all ... oh you, damn you! ..
How are they putting it there on purpose?
God knows them! I asked: the guys laugh, they say: so, listen, they will be born. And what kind of food? First they will serve hot, as it should, with pies, but only pies with a thimble; suddenly you take six pieces in your mouth, you want to chew, you look - they are already there, and they melted ... After a hot one, they suddenly give something sweet, there is beef, and there is ice cream, and there is some kind of herb, and there is roast ... and I would not eat !
- So you didn’t heat the stove? Well, how not to lose weight! said Anton Ivanovich, getting up from the table.
“Thank you, my God,” he began aloud, with a deep sigh, “for you have satisfied me with heavenly blessings ... what am I! then the tongue was silent: earthly goods, - and do not deprive me of your heavenly kingdom.
- Clear the table: the gentlemen will not eat. Have another piglet ready for tonight...or a turkey? Alexander Fedorych loves turkey; he, tea, gets hungry. And now bring me some fresh hay in the room: I'll breathe for another hour; wake up for tea. If Alexander Fyodoritch stirs a little there, so be it ... push me aside.
Rising from sleep, he came to Anna Pavlovna.
- Well, Anton Ivanovich? she asked.
- Nothing, mother, I humbly thank you for the bread for the salt ... and fell asleep so sweetly; hay is so fresh, fragrant ...
- To your health, Anton Ivanovich. Well, what does Yevsey say? Did you ask?
– How not to ask! All found out: empty! everything will get better. The point is that everything, it turns out, is because the food there was, you hear, bad.
– Food?
- Yes; judge for yourself: cucumbers are forty kopecks a dozen, a piglet is two rubles, and the food is all confectionery - and you won’t eat your fill. How not to lose weight! Don't worry, mother, we'll put him on his feet here, cure him. You tell me to prepare more birch tincture; I will give the recipe; I got it from Prokofy Astafyich; Yes, in the morning and in the evening, and let's take a glass or two, and before dinner it's good; maybe with holy water… do you have any?
- There is, there is: you brought it.
“Yes, indeed I am. Choose fatter meals. I already ordered a pig or a turkey to be roasted for dinner.
Thank you, Anton Ivanovich.
- Not at all, mother! Would you like some more chicken with white sauce?
- I command...
- Why do you yourself? and what am I for? I'll pat... give it to me.
- Pat, help, dear father.
He left and she thought.
The female instinct and the heart of the mother told her that it was not food main reason thoughtfulness of Alexander. She began to skillfully ferret out hints, sideways, but Alexander did not understand these hints and was silent. So two or three weeks passed. A lot of pigs, chickens and turkeys went to Anton Ivanovich, but Alexander was still thoughtful, thin, and his hair did not grow.
Then Anna Pavlovna decided to have a direct talk with him.
“Listen, my friend, Sashenka,” she once said, “it’s been a month since you’ve been living here, and I haven’t seen you smile at least once: you walk like a cloud, you look at the ground. Or is nothing nice for you on your native side? It can be seen on someone else's nicer; you miss her, don't you? My heart breaks looking at you. What happened to you? Tell me what are you missing? I won't regret anything. Has anyone offended you: I will get to that.
“Don’t worry, mamma,” Alexander said, “that’s right, nothing! I entered summer, became more reasonable, and therefore thoughtful ...
- And why is it bad? where is the hair?
- I can’t tell you why ... you can’t tell everything that happened at the age of eight ... maybe my health is a little, upset ...
- What hurts you?
- It hurts here and there. He pointed to the head and heart. Anna Pavlovna touched his forehead with her hand.
“No heat,” she said. - What would it be? shoots, or what, in the head?
- No... so...
- Sashenka! We will send for Ivan Andreevich.
- Who is Ivan Andreevich?
– New doctor; two years since I arrived. Doka such a miracle! Prescribes almost no medicines; he makes some tiny grains himself - and they help. Over there, Thomas suffered with his stomach; for three days the roar roared: he gave him three grains, as if it had been taken away by hand! Lie down, dove!
- No, mother, he will not help me: it will pass.
- Why are you bored? What kind of attack is this?
- So…
– What do you want?
“I don’t know either; so miss.
What a marvel, sir! Anna Pavlovna said. - Food, you say, you like it, there are all the conveniences, and the rank is good ... what would it seem? but you're bored! Sashenka,” she said, after a pause, quietly, “isn't it time for you ... to get married?
- What do you! no, I'm not getting married.
- And I have a girl in mind - just like a doll: pink, tender; so, it seems, the cerebellum overflows from bone to bone. The waist is so thin, slender; studied in the city, in a boarding school. Behind her are seventy-five souls and twenty-five thousand in money, and a glorious dowry: they did it in Moscow; and relatives are good... Huh? Sashenka? I talked to my mother once over coffee, and jokingly dropped a word: she seems to have ears on top of her head with joy ...
“I'm not getting married,” Alexander repeated.
- More than ever?
- Never.
- Lord have mercy! what will come of it? All people are like people, only God knows who you look like! And what a joy it would be to me! God would bring the grandchildren to babysit. Right, marry her; you will love her...
- I will not fall in love, mother: I have already fallen out of love.
How did you fall in love without getting married? Who did you love there?
- A girl.
- Why didn't you get married?
- She cheated on me.
- How did you change? You haven't been married to her yet, have you?
Alexander was silent.
- Well, your girls are good there: they love before the wedding! Changed! such a bastard! Happiness itself asked to be in her hands, but she did not know how to appreciate, you scoundrel! If I saw her, I would spit in her face. What was your uncle watching? Whom did she find better, would I look? .. Well, is she alone? love another time.
I loved it the other time too.
- Whom?
- A widow.
Well, why didn't you get married?
- I changed it myself.
Anna Pavlovna looked at Alexander and did not know what to say.
“Changed!” she repeated. - It looks like some kind of dissolute! added later. - Truly a whirlpool, God forgive me: they love before the wedding, without a church rite; they change ... What is this being done in this world, as you can see! Know that the end of the world is coming soon! .. Well, tell me, do you want something? Maybe the food is not to your liking? I will write out the cook from the city ...
- No, thank you, everything is fine.
- Maybe you are bored alone: ​​I will send for the neighbors.
- No no. Don't worry, mother! I'm calm here, it's good; everything will pass ... I have not looked around yet.
That was all Anna Pavlovna could achieve.
“No,” she thought, “without God, apparently, not a single step.” She invited Alexander to go with her to mass in the nearest village, but he overslept twice, and she did not dare to wake him. Finally she called him in the evening to the Vespers. “Perhaps,” Alexander said, and they drove off. Mother entered the church and stood at the very kliros, Alexander remained at the door.
The sun was already setting and throwing indirect rays that either played on the gold frames of the icons, or illuminated the dark and stern faces of the saints and destroyed with their brilliance the weak and timid flickering of candles. The church was almost empty: the peasants were at work in the fields; only in the corner near the exit crowded several old women, tied with white shawls. Others, grieving and leaning their cheeks on their hands, sat on the stone step of the chapel and from time to time let out loud and heavy sighs, God knows whether it was about their sins, or about household chores. Others, crouching on the ground, lay prostrate for a long time, praying.
A fresh breeze rushed through the iron grating into the window and either lifted the fabric on the throne, or played with the priest's gray hair, or turned over the sheet of the book and extinguished the candle. The steps of the priest and sexton resounded loudly on the stone floor in the empty church; their voices resounded sadly through the vaults. Above, in the dome, jackdaws chirped loudly and sparrows chirped, flying from one window to another, and the noise of their wings and the ringing of bells sometimes drowned out the service ...
"While a person is boiling vitality, - thought Alexander, - while desires and passions play, he is sensually busy, he runs away from that soothing, important and solemn contemplation to which religion leads ... he comes to seek solace in it with faded, wasted forces, with crushed hopes, with the burden of years ... "
Little by little, at the sight of familiar objects, memories awakened in Alexander's soul. He mentally ran through his childhood and youth before his trip to Petersburg; he remembered how, as a child, he repeated prayers after his mother, how she repeated to him about the guardian angel, who stands guard over the human soul and is eternally at enmity with the unclean; how she, pointing to the stars, said that these are the eyes of God's angels who look at the world and count the good and evil deeds of people, how the celestials cry when in the end there are more evil than good deeds, and how they rejoice when good deeds outnumber the evil. Pointing to the blue of the distant horizon, she said that it was Zion... Alexander sighed, waking up from these memories.
"Oh! if only I could still believe it! he thought. - Infantile beliefs are lost, but what did I learn new, true? .. nothing: I found doubts, rumors, theories ... and even further from the truth than before ... Why this split, this cleverness? .. God! .. when the warmth of faith is not warms hearts, is it possible to be happy? Am I happier?
The all-night service is over. Alexander came home even more boring than he went. Anna Pavlovna did not know what to do. One day he woke up earlier than usual and heard a rustle behind his headboard. He looked around: some old woman was standing over him and whispering. She disappeared as soon as she saw that she had been noticed. Under his pillow, Alexander found some kind of grass; he had an amulet hanging around his neck.
- What does it mean? - Alexander asked his mother, - what kind of old woman was in my room?
Anna Pavlovna was embarrassed.
“This is… Nikitishna,” she said.
- What Nikitishna?
- She, you see, my friend ... you will not be angry?
- Yes, what is it? tell.
- She ... they say, she helps many ... She only whispers into the water, and breathes on a sleeping person - everything will pass.
“In the third year, to the widow Sidorikhe,” Agrafena said, “at night a fiery serpent flew up the chimney ...
Here Anna Pavlovna spat.
“Nikitishna,” Agrafena continued, “the snake spoke: it stopped flying ...
- Well, what about Sidorich? Alexander asked.
- She gave birth: the child was so thin and black! died on the third day.
Alexander laughed, maybe for the first time since his arrival in the village.
- Where did you get it from? - he asked.
“Anton Ivanovich brought it,” Anna Pavlovna answered.
- You want to listen to this fool!
- Fool! Oh, Sashenka, what are you? isn't it a sin? Anton Ivanovich is a fool! How did you turn your tongue? Anton Ivanovich is a benefactor, our friend!
“Here, mother, take an amulet and give it to our friend and benefactor: let him hang it around his neck.”
Since then, he began to lock himself up at night.
Two or three months have passed. Little by little, solitude, silence, home life and all the material benefits associated with it helped Alexander to enter the body. And laziness, carelessness and the absence of any moral shock placed in his soul the peace that Alexander was looking for in vain in St. Petersburg. There, fleeing from the world of ideas, arts, enclosed in stone walls, he wanted to fall asleep with the sleep of a mole, but he was constantly awakened by excitements of envy and impotent desires. Every phenomenon in the world of science and art, every new celebrity awakened in him the question: “Why is it not me, why not me?” There, at every step, he met in people unfavorable comparisons for himself ... there he fell so often, there he saw his weaknesses as if in a mirror ... there was an inexorable uncle who pursued his way of thinking, laziness and love of glory based on nothing; there is an elegant world and a lot of talents, among which he played no role. Finally, there they try to bring life under certain conditions, to clarify its dark and mysterious places, not giving revelry to feelings, passions and dreams, and thereby depriving her of poetic temptation, they want to publish for her some kind of boring, dry, monotonous and heavy form ...
And what a treat here! He is the best, smartest of all! Here he is a universal idol for several miles around. Moreover, here at every step, in the face of nature, his soul opened itself to peaceful, soothing impressions. The voice of the jets, the whisper of the leaves, the coolness and sometimes the very silence of nature - everything gave rise to a thought, aroused a feeling. In the garden, in the field, at home, he was visited by memories of childhood and youth. Anna Pavlovna, sometimes sitting beside him, seemed to divine his thoughts. She helped him to renew in his memory the little things from life dear to his heart or told him what he did not remember at all.
“Those lindens,” she said, pointing to the garden, “were planted by your father. I was pregnant with you. I used to sit here on the balcony and look at him. He will work, work and look at me, and the sweat is pouring down from him like a hail. "BUT! you're here? - he says, - then it’s so fun for me to work! - and will take it again. And over there is the meadow where you used to play with the kids; he was so angry: just not for you - and you will scream with a good obscenity. Once Agashka - that's what is now behind Kuzma, his third hut from the outskirts - somehow pushed you, but your nose was bleeding and bruised: father flogged, flogged her, I begged forcibly.
Alexander mentally supplemented these memories with others: “On this bench, under a tree,” he thought, “I sat with Sophia and was happy then. And over there, between two lilac bushes, I received her first kiss from her ... ”And all this was before my eyes. He smiled at these memories and sat for hours on end on the balcony, meeting or seeing off the sun, listening to the birds singing, to the splashing of the lake and to the buzzing of invisible insects.
"My God! how good it is here! - he said under the influence of these meek impressions, - far from the bustle, from this petty life, from that anthill where people

... in heaps, behind the fence,
Don't breathe in the morning chill
Nor the spring smell of the meadows

How tired you get to live there and how you rest your soul here, in this simple, uncomplicated, uncomplicated life! The heart is renewed, the chest breathes more freely, and the mind is not tormented by painful thoughts and endless analysis of difficult matters with the heart: both are in harmony. Nothing to think about. Carefree, without a painful thought, with a slumbering heart and mind, and with a slight trembling, you glance from grove to arable land, from arable land to hill, and then you immerse it in the bottomless blue of the sky.
Sometimes he went to the window overlooking the courtyard and the street to the village. There is another picture, a Tenier picture, full of troublesome, family life. The watchdog from the heat will stretch out at the kennel, putting its muzzle on its paws. Dozens of hens greet the morning, clucking their starts; the roosters are fighting. The herd is driven down the street into the field. Sometimes one cow lagging behind the herd mourns sadly, standing in the middle of the street and looking around in all directions. Men and women, with rakes and scythes on their shoulders, go to work. The wind at times will snatch two or three words from their conversation and carry it to the window. There, a peasant cart with thunder will pass over the bridge, after it a hay cart will lazily crawl. The blond and coarse-haired children, having lifted their shirts, wander through the puddles. Looking at this picture, Alexander began to comprehend the poetry of a gray sky, a broken fence, a gate, a dirty pond and a trepak. He replaced the narrow dandy tailcoat with a wide dressing gown homework. And in every manifestation of this peaceful life, in every impression of morning, evening, meal, and rest, there was an unsleeping eye of motherly love.
She could not get enough of looking at how Alexander grew stout, how the blush returned to his cheeks, how his eyes revived with a peaceful brilliance. “Only the hairs do not grow,” she said, “but were like silk.”
Alexander often walked around the neighborhood. Once he met a crowd of women and girls going to the forest for mushrooms, joined them and walked the whole day. Returning home, he praised the girl Masha for her agility and dexterity, and Masha was taken into the yard to follow the master. He sometimes went to look at field work and learned from experience what he often wrote about and translated for the magazine. “How often we lied there…” he thought, shaking his head, and began to delve into the matter deeper and more closely.
Once, in inclement weather, he tried to get down to business, sat down to write and was satisfied with the beginning of work. Some book was needed for reference: he wrote to St. Petersburg, the book was sent. He did not joke. Wrote more books. In vain did Anna Pavlovna set out to persuade him not to write, so that he wouldn't piss on his breast: he didn't even want to listen. She sent Anton Ivanovich. Alexander did not listen to him and wrote everything. When three or four months had passed, and he not only did not lose weight from writing, but gained more fat, Anna Pavlovna calmed down.
So a year and a half passed. Everything would be fine, but by the end of this period, Alexander began to think again. He did not have any desires, and what he had, it was not surprising to satisfy them: they did not go beyond the limits of family life. Nothing disturbed him: neither care nor doubt, but he was bored! Little by little he grew weary of the tight circle of the home; his mother's obsequiousness became tiresome, and Anton Ivanitch became disgusted; Tired of work, and nature did not captivate him.
He was sitting silently at the window, already looking indifferently at his father's lindens, listening with annoyance to the splashing of the lake. He began to think about the reason for this new longing and discovered that he was bored - for St. Petersburg?! Moving away from the past, he began to regret it. His blood was still boiling in him, his heart was beating, his soul and body were asking for activity... Another task. My God! he almost wept at the discovery. He thought that this boredom would pass, that he would take root in the village, get used to it - no: the longer he lived there, the more his heart ached and again asked to go into the pool, now familiar to him.
He made peace with the past: it became dear to him. Hatred, a gloomy look, gloominess, unsociableness were softened by solitude, reflection. The past appeared to him in a purified light, and the traitor Nadenka herself was almost in the rays. “And what am I doing here? - he said with annoyance, - why am I withering? Why are my gifts extinguished? Why can't I shine there with my work? .. Now I have become more reasonable. Why is my uncle better than me? Can't I find my way? Well, it has not been possible so far, it has not taken on its own - well? I came to my senses now: it's time, it's time! But how my departure will upset my mother! And meanwhile it is necessary to go: it is impossible to perish here! There, one and the other - they all became people ... And what about my career, and what about fortune? .. I'm the only one left behind ... but for what? yes why?” He tossed about from anguish and did not know how to tell his mother about his intention to go.
But his mother soon saved him from this work: she died. Here, finally, is what he wrote to his uncle and aunt in Petersburg.
To my aunt:

“Before my departure from Petersburg, ma tante, with tears in your eyes, admonished me with precious words that have stuck in my memory. You said: “If someday I need warm friendship, sincere participation, then in your heart there will always be a corner for me.” The moment came when I realized the full value of these words. In the rights that you so generously gave me over your heart, lies for me a guarantee of peace, silence, consolation, tranquility, perhaps the happiness of my whole life. My mother died three months ago: I won't add another word. You know from her letters that she was for me, and you will understand what I have lost in her ... Now I am running away from here forever. But where, lonely wanderer, would I direct my path, if not to those places where you are?.. Say one word: will I find in you what I left a year and a half ago? Have you banished me from your memory? Will you agree to the boring duty of healing, through your friendship, which has more than once saved me from grief, a new and deep wound? I put all my hope on you and another, powerful ally - activity.
You are surprised, aren't you? Is it strange for you to hear this from me? read these lines, written in a calm, uncharacteristic tone? Do not be surprised and do not be afraid of my return: not a madcap, not a dreamer, not a disappointed, not a provincial, but simply a person, of whom there are many in St. Petersburg and no matter how long ago I should have been, will come to you. Warn your uncle especially about this. When I look at my past life, I feel embarrassed, ashamed of both others and myself. But it couldn't be otherwise. That's when he just woke up - in thirty years! The difficult school I went through in St. Petersburg and reflection in the countryside completely clarified my fate for me. Retreating at a respectful distance from my uncle's lessons and my own experience, I understood them here, in silence, more clearly, and I see where they should have led me long ago, I see how pitifully and unreasonably I deviated from a direct goal. I am now calm: I am not tormented, I am not tormented, but I do not brag about it; perhaps this tranquility stems for the time being from selfishness; I feel, however, that soon my outlook on life will become clearer to the point that I will discover another source of peace - a purer one. Now I still cannot but regret that I have already reached that point where - alas! - youth ends and the time of reflection begins, verification and disassembly of any excitement, the time of consciousness.
Although, perhaps, my opinion about people and life has changed a little, but many hopes have flown away, many desires have passed, illusions have been lost in a word; consequently, not much and not many will have to be mistaken and deceived, and this is very comforting on the one hand! And now I look forward more clearly: the worst is behind; unrest is not terrible, because there are few of them left; the main ones are passed, and I bless them. I am ashamed to remember how, imagining myself a sufferer, I cursed my lot, my life. Cursed! what pathetic childishness and ingratitude! How late I saw that suffering purifies the soul, that they alone make a person tolerable both to themselves and to others, elevate him ... I now admit that not to participate in suffering means not to participate in the fullness of life: important conditions, which permission we here, perhaps, will not wait for. I see in these unrest the hand of Providence, which, it seems, sets a person an endless task - to strive forward, to achieve a goal from above, while constantly struggling with deceptive hopes, with painful obstacles. Yes, I see how necessary this struggle and unrest is for life, how life without them would not be life, but stagnation, a dream ... The struggle ends, you look - life also ends; man was busy, loved, enjoyed, suffered, worried, did his job and, therefore, lived!
You see, how I reason: I came out of the darkness - and I see that everything I have lived up to now has been some kind of difficult preparation for the real path, a tricky science for life. Something tells me that the rest of the way will be easier, quieter, clearer... life begins to seem good, not evil. Soon I will say again: how good life is! but I will say it not as a young man intoxicated with momentary pleasure, but with full consciousness of its true pleasures and bitterness. Then death is not terrible: it does not seem like a scarecrow, but a wonderful experience. And now an unknown calmness blows into the soul: childish annoyances, outbursts of pricked pride, childish irritability and comic anger at the world and people, similar to the anger of a pug at an elephant - as if it had not happened.
I made friends again, with whom I became friends a long time ago - with people who, I remark in passing, are the same here as in St. Petersburg, only tougher, ruder, funnier. But I am not angry with them here, and there I will not be angry even more so. Here is an example of my meekness: the eccentric Anton Ivanovich comes to visit us, as if to share my grief; tomorrow he will go to a neighbor's wedding - to share the joy, and then to someone - to correct the position of a midwife. But neither grief nor joy interferes with him; everyone has four times a day. I see that it doesn’t matter to him: whether a person died, or was born, or got married, and I don’t hate to look at him, it’s not annoying ... I tolerate him, I don’t expel him ... A good sign, isn’t it, ma tante? What will you say when you read this commendable word to yourself?

“My dearest, kindest uncle and, at the same time, Your Excellency!
With what joy I learned that your career has been accomplished meritoriously; you got along with fortune a long time ago! You are a real state adviser, you are the director of the office! Do I dare to remind Your Excellency of the promise made to me when I left: “When you need service, employment or money, turn to me,” you said. And so I needed both service and classes; Of course, you will also need money. A poor provincial dares to ask for a place and a job. What fate awaits my request? Isn’t it the same as Zayezzhalov’s letter once befell, who asked to take care of his business? .. As for creativity, which you had the cruelty to mention in one of your letters, then ... isn’t it a sin for you to disturb long-forgotten nonsense when I myself blush for them?.. Eh, uncle, eh, Your Excellency! Who hasn't been young and kind of stupid? Who has not had some strange, so-called cherished dream, which is never destined to come true? Here is my neighbor, on the right, imagined himself a hero, a giant - a fisher before the Lord ... he wanted to amaze the world with his exploits ... and it ended with the fact that he retired as an ensign, not having been in the war, and peacefully cultivates potatoes and sows turnips. The other, on the left, dreamed of remaking the whole world and Russia in his own way, while he himself, after writing papers in the ward for some time, retired here and still cannot remake the old fence. I thought that a creative gift was invested in me from above, and I wanted to tell the world new, unknown secrets, not suspecting that these were no longer secrets and that I was not a prophet. We are all funny; but tell me, who, without blushing for himself, will dare to stigmatize these youthful, noble, ardent, though not quite moderate dreams? Who, in turn, did not harbor a fruitless desire, did not consider himself the hero of a valiant deed, a solemn song, a loud narration? Whose imagination was not carried away to the fabulous, heroic times? who did not weep, sympathizing with the lofty and beautiful? If there is such a person, let him throw a stone at me - I do not envy him. I blush for my youthful dreams, but I honor them: they are a pledge of purity of heart, a sign of a noble soul, disposed towards goodness.
You, I know, will not be convinced by these arguments: you need a positive, practical argument; if you please, here it is: tell me, how would talents be recognized and developed if young people suppressed these early inclinations in themselves, if they did not give free rein and space to their dreams, but followed the slavishly indicated direction, without trying their strength? Finally, isn't it a general law of nature that youth should be restless, seething, sometimes extravagant, stupid, and that every dream will subside in time, as it has now subsided with me? And is your own youth really alien to these sins? Remember, dig in memory. I see from here how you, with your calm, never embarrassed look, shake your head and say: there is nothing! Let me convict you, for example, at least in love ... do you renounce? do not deny: the evidence is in my hands ... Remember that I could investigate the case at the scene. Theater of your love affairs before my eyes is a lake. Yellow flowers still grow on it; one, having dried properly, I have the honor to forward to your excellency, for a sweet remembrance. But there is a more terrible weapon against your persecution of love in general and mine in particular - this is a document ... Are you frowning? and what document! turned pale? I stole this precious dilapidation from my aunt, from an equally dilapidated chest, and I am taking it with me as eternal evidence against you and as protection for myself. Tremble, uncle! Not only that, I know in detail the whole story of your love: my aunt tells me every day, at morning tea and at dinner, at bedtime, interesting fact and I am putting all these precious materials into a special memoir. I shall not fail to present it to you personally, together with my labors in Agriculture which I have been doing here for a year now. For my part, I consider it my duty to assure my aunt of the invariability of your feelings for her, as she says. When I am honored to receive from Your Excellency a favorable answer, at my request, I will have the honor to come to you, with an offering of dried raspberries and honey and with the presentation of several letters with which my neighbors promise to supply me according to their needs, except for Zayezzhalov, who died before the end of his process."

The morning was beautiful. The lake in the village of Hrachi slightly rippled from a slight swell. Eyes involuntarily pinched from the dazzling brilliance of the sun's rays, sparkling now with diamond, now with emerald sparks in the water. Weeping birches bathed their branches in the lake, and in some places the banks were overgrown with sedge, in which large yellow flowers resting on wide floating leaves. The sun was sometimes covered with light clouds. Suddenly it seems to turn away from the Rooks. Then the lake, and the grove, and the village - everything will instantly darken, only the distance shines brightly. The cloud will pass - the lake will shine again, the fields will shed like gold.

The scenery began to change significantly. The midday air, heated by the sultry rays of the sun, became stuffy and heavy. Here the sun is hidden. It became dark. And the forest, and distant villages, and grass - everything was clothed in an indifferent, some kind of ominous color.

From the west stretched, like a living monster, a black, ugly spot with a copper sheen along the edges and quickly approached the village and the grove, stretching like huge wings on the sides. Everything is dreary in nature. The cows lowered their heads; the horses fanned their tails, flared their nostrils and snorted, shaking their manes. The dust under their hooves did not rise up, but crumbled heavily, like sand, under the wheels. The cloud was moving ominously. Soon a distant rumble slowly rolled over.

Everything was silent, as if waiting for something unprecedented. Where did these birds go, which so briskly fluttered and sang in the sun? Where are the insects that buzzed so variously in the grass? Everything was hidden and silent, and soulless objects seemed to share the ominous foreboding. The trees stopped swaying and touching each other with boughs; they straightened up; only from time to time they leaned their tops towards each other, as if mutually warning themselves in a whisper about imminent danger. A cloud has already overlaid the horizon and formed some kind of impenetrable lead vault. Everyone in the village tried to get home on time. There was a moment of general, solemn silence. Here, from the forest, like an advanced messenger, a fresh breeze swept, breathed coolness into the face of the traveler, rustled through the leaves, slammed the gate in the hut in passing, swirled dust in the street and died down in the bushes. A stormy whirlwind rushes after him, slowly moving a column of dust along the road. Here he burst into the village, threw down several rotten boards from the fence, demolished the thatched roof, raised the skirt of a peasant woman carrying water and drove roosters and hens along the street, fanning their tails.

Rushed. Again silence. Everything fusses and hides; only a stupid ram does not foresee anything. He indifferently chews his gum, standing in the middle of the street, and looks in one direction, not understanding the general anxiety. A feather with a straw, circling along the road, is trying to keep up with the whirlwind.

Two, three large drops of rain fell - and suddenly lightning flashed. The old man got up from the mound and hurriedly led the little grandchildren to the hut. The old woman crossed herself hastily closed the window.

Thunder roared and, drowning out the human noise, solemnly, regally rolled through the air. The frightened horse broke away from the hitching post and rushes with a rope into the field; the peasant pursues him in vain. And the rain just pours, and cuts, more and more often, and knocks on the roofs and windows harder and harder.

Return to the village. For a moment found harmony. The ring composition brought us to the moment from which the story began. Once again, the action unfolds on a “beautiful morning”, again we have before us “a lake familiar to the reader in the village of Grachi”. Again we see Anna Pavlovna, who "has been sitting on the balcony since five o'clock", waiting for her son with the same excitement with which she let go eight years ago. Anton Ivanovich also hurries to comfort her and eat at the same time. Only nature does not harmonize with their joyful expectation with its ominous predictions: “The midday air, heated by the sultry rays of the sun, became stuffy and heavy. Here the sun is hidden. It became dark. And the forest, and distant villages, and grass - everything was clothed in some kind of indifferent ominous color ... My God! From the west stretched, like a living monster, a black, ugly spot with a copper tint along the edges and quickly approached the village and the grove, stretching like huge wings on the sides ... Thunder struck ... ”Like a fabulous monster Serpent Gorynych is preparing to fly to peaceful Rooks.

The reader is no longer amazed that Alexander forgot to give at least something to his mother and did not ask about his first love, Sophia, who lives a few miles away with her husband, and “there is such poverty in the house that I would not even look.” Unlike his master, Yevsey does not forget to bring gifts to the household - "he gave Petersburg gifts: to whom a silver ring, to whom a birch snuffbox", to the taste of everyone. We almost forgot about this character. Unless it flickers before us, destroying the most romantic soaring of Alexander, it will bring down from heaven to earth with sensible remarks: “If we don’t forget: just now in a shop for a penny of vinegar I took cabbage for a hryvnia, tomorrow I have to give it back”, “If you please, look, sir ... , what a wax<…>. To send to the village ... ”And yet the servant Yevsey turned out to be more romantic than his master. Because he managed to keep the feeling among the temptations of the capital. In the same way, the peasant woman Agrafena remained faithful to him after eight years of separation. She hides love behind feigned rudeness. “Brought it hard,” she said angrily, looking at him furtively from time to time; but in her eyes and in her smile the greatest joy was expressed ... "So, eternal, faithful, real love is in the world. Only she does not shout about herself, does not swear, it is even difficult to distinguish her in the flash of everyday life.

Anna Pavlovna remained the same. But the hero has seen other people and a different life. Stagnation with its gossip, petty interests, absurd superstitions, vicious attacks against a negligent servant who dared not to buy the master's buns and thereby brought him to a life collapse becomes unbearable for him (so believes the old woman Adueva and her entourage). Again "he Alexander) is better, smarter than everyone! Here he is a universal idol for several miles around. But it is impossible to spend time in perfect idleness: “Once, in inclement weather, he tried to do business, sat down to write and was satisfied with the beginning of work. Some book was needed for reference: he wrote to St. Petersburg, the book was sent. He took up not jokingly ... ”Although Alexander did not“ tear his chest ”; and the author ironically describes how the caring mother calmed down when “he not only did not lose weight from writing, but gained more fat ...”.

The author made his hero experience the moment of the second catharsis. He was able to realize his own and forgive other people's mistakes. We turn to the letters of the younger Aduev to his uncle and aunt. In a message to Lizaveta Alexandrovna, Alexander recognizes the need for the presence in a person's life of a "powerful ally - activity." The hero understands how wrong he was when he tried to evade trials and seek only pleasures in life: “I now admit that not being involved in suffering means not being involved in the fullness of life.<…>. I see in these disturbances the hand of Providence, which<…>sets a person an endless task - to strive forward, to achieve a goal from above, with every minute struggle with deceptive hopes, with painful obstacles. Here, it turns out, what, according to Goncharov, is the meaning human life- moving towards the goal, striving to become better. So, the writer believed, commanded by the Lord. Otherwise, a person spiritually dies while still alive. In his very first novel, Goncharov puts words into the hero’s mouth that could be put as an epigraph to Oblomov: “Yes, I see how necessary this struggle and unrest is for life, how life without them would not be life, but stagnation, a dream . The struggle ends, you look - life ends too ... ”In the second letter, he defends his youth from the all-destroying criticism of his uncle (all the more so because he found evidence of Pyotr Ivanovich’s romantic youth -“ material signs ... ”): “Who, without blushing for himself, decides to stigmatize<…>those youthful, noble, ardent, if not entirely temperate dreams?<…>I blush for my youthful dreams, but I honor them: they are a guarantee of purity of heart, a sign of a noble soul, disposed towards goodness.

The story could have ended. Such a sensitive critic as Belinsky, who considered the further course of the action unnatural and implausible, was convinced of this. He suggested a different ending: “The author would rather have the right to make his hero stall in the village game in apathy and laziness ... Here Aduev would remain true to his nature, would continue his old life.<…>Then the hero would be a completely modern romantic…” But Alexander has long ceased to be a romantic. The hero's soul is already irreparably poisoned by the miasma of modern civilization. In the epilogue, four years later, Aduev Jr. found a “career and fortune”.

Not only Alexander becomes a victim of the calculations of Peter Ivanovich. His wife, this lovely one, full of life, interest and compassion for everything that surrounds her, a woman turns into a living ruin. Goncharov paints a portrait of an emaciated, spiritually old man who has nothing and nothing to live for. Like a parrot, Lizaveta Alexandrovna repeats her husband’s phrase: “I’m doing my job ...” And it’s all the more terrible because at first the lively sociable heroine found enough spiritual strength in herself to resist her husband’s “school”.

It would seem that Pyotr Ivanovich should triumph, his plan came true to make his wife a submissive shadow. But the results of this experiment on a living human soul are so striking that they horrify the husband himself. "He<…>, - Belinsky explains, - he was sure that he had established his marital status on a solid foundation, - and suddenly he saw that his poor wife was a victim of his wisdom, that he ate her eyelid, strangled her in a cold and cramped atmosphere. What a lesson for positive people, representatives of common sense! It can be seen that a person needs a little more than common sense!”

Looking into the depths of the hero's human soul, the author does not find love there - it does not exist and, apparently, never was. Not love, but long-term habit, gratitude, guilt - feelings, perhaps stronger than love, bind him to Lizaveta Alexandrovna. And he decides to make a sacrifice that everyone who knows the nature of Pyotr Ivanovich will call great: to resign, sell the plant and go to Italy to try to resurrect his wife. “Peter Ivanovich in the end throws everything for her and is ready for anything, if only she would become the same. It is a pity that he remembers late, too late! - notes a tenth grader in an essay “Lizaveta Alexandrovna is my favorite character in the novel” ordinary story”» .

What happened? “I don’t understand how I haven’t seen it before! - Pyotr Ivanovich is surprised at his many years of blindness. - Position and deeds ... "In vain did he not remember the lines from his nephew's letter:" Finally, isn't this general law of nature that youth should be anxious, seething, sometimes extravagant, stupid, and that every dream will subside with time ..? “A funny and windy old man, / A funny and sedate young man,” Pushkin noted. Goncharov draws after his idol the evolution of human ages. In maturity, a person seeks to establish himself in society, to achieve respect and visible signs of his recognition. Whereas old age has always been considered a time of summing up the results of life. “Amazement and horror” before his own cruelty is experienced by the elder Aduev, “living to pain in the lower back and gray hair.” Moral suffering is, if not sufficient, then a tangible retribution of fate to a person who has built his life this way.

20 frowned.
“Here’s someone who’s suffered a hard time!” she grumbled, “no, to go around; everyone jumps in here.
With displeasure, she sank back into her chair and again, with trembling expectation, fixed her eyes on the grove, not noticing anything around. And there was something to notice around: the scenery began to change significantly. The midday air, heated by the sultry rays of the sun, became stuffy and heavy. Here the sun is hidden. It became dark. And the forest, and distant villages, and grass - everything was clothed in
30 is an indifferent, some kind of ominous color.
Anna Pavlovna woke up and looked up. My God! From the west stretched, like a living monster, a black, ugly spot with a copper sheen along the edges and quickly approached the village and the grove, stretching like huge wings on the sides. Everything has become desolate in nature. The cows lowered their heads; the horses fanned their tails, flared their nostrils and snorted, shaking their manes. The dust under their hooves did not rise up, but crumbled heavily, like sand, under the wheels. The cloud was moving ominously.
40 Soon a distant rumble rolled slowly.
Everything was silent, as if waiting for something unprecedented. Where did these birds go, which so briskly fluttered and sang in the sun? Where are the insects that buzzed so variously in the grass? Everything is hidden and silent,
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and soulless objects seemed to share the ominous foreboding. The trees stopped swaying and touching each other with boughs; they straightened up; only from time to time they leaned their tops towards each other, as if mutually warning themselves in a whisper about imminent danger. A cloud has already overlaid the horizon and formed some kind of leaden, impenetrable vault. Everyone in the village tried to get home on time. There was a moment of general solemn silence. That's from the forest as a frontline
10 The messenger blew a fresh breeze, breathed coolness into the face of the traveler, rustled through the leaves, slammed the gate in the hut in passing, and, turning the dust in the street, died down in the bushes. A stormy whirlwind rushes after him, slowly moving a column of dust along the road; here he burst into the village, threw off several rotten boards from the fence, demolished the thatched roof, fluffed up the skirt of a peasant woman carrying water and drove roosters and hens along the street, fanning their tails.
Rushed. Again silence. Everything is fussing and hiding; only a stupid ram has no presentiment of anything: he is indifferent
20 chewing his gum, standing in the middle of the street, and looking in one direction, not understanding the general anxiety; and a feather with a straw, spinning along the road, trying to keep up with the whirlwind.
Two or three large drops of rain fell - and suddenly lightning flashed. The old man got up from the mound and hurriedly led the little grandchildren to the hut; the old woman, crossing herself, hastily closed the window.
Thunder roared and, drowning out the human noise, solemnly, regally rolled through the air. The frightened horse broke away
30 from the hitching post and rushes with a rope into the field; the peasant pursues him in vain. And the rain just pours and cuts, more and more often, and crushes into the roofs and windows harder and harder. A little white hand timidly sticks out an object of tender cares - flowers - onto the balcony.
At the first clap of thunder, Anna Pavlovna crossed herself and left the balcony.
“No, there’s nothing to look forward to today,” she said with a sigh, “because of the storm I’ve stopped somewhere, except towards night.”
40 Suddenly there was a sound of wheels, but not from the grove, but from the other side. Someone entered the yard. Adueva's heart sank.
“How is it from there? she thought, didn't he want to come secretly? No, it's not a road."
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She didn't know what to think; but soon everything was explained. A minute later Anton Ivanovich entered. His hair was silver with grey; he himself grew fat; cheeks swollen from inactivity and overeating. He wore the same frock coat, the same wide trousers.
“I’ve been waiting for you, waiting for you, Anton Ivanovich,” Anna Pavlovna began, “I thought you wouldn’t be, I was in despair.
- It's a sin to think! to someone else, mother, - so!
10 You won't get me to anyone, but not to you. I lingered through no fault of my own: after all, I now ride on one horse.
– What is it? Anna Pavlovna asked absently, moving towards the window.
- Why, mother, the pegashka limped from the christening at Pavel Savich: the difficult coachman managed to put the old barn door through the groove ... poor people, you see! There is no new board! And on the door there was a nail or a hook, or something - the evil one knows them! How the horse stepped
20 so to the side and shied away and almost broke my neck ... sort of shots! Since then, he has been lame ... After all, there are such stingers! You won’t believe, mother, that this is in their house: in another almshouse it’s better to keep the people. And in Moscow, on the Kuznechny bridge, every year, ten thousand will be spent!
Anna Pavlovna listened to him absently and shook her head slightly when he had finished.
- But I received a letter from Sashenka, Anton Ivanovich! - she interrupted, - writes that about the twentieth
30 will be: so I did not remember for joy.
- I heard, mother: Proshka said, but at first I didn’t make out what he was saying; I thought that I had already arrived; With joy, I was thrown into a sweat.
- God bless you, Anton Ivanovich, that you love us.
- Still not to love! Why, I carried Alexander Fedorych in my arms: it was the same as my own.
- Thank you, Anton Ivanovich: God will reward you! And I almost do not sleep the next night and do not let people sleep:
40 will arrive unequally, and we will all sleep - it will be good! Yesterday and the third day I walked to the grove, and today I would go, but damn old age overcomes. At night, insomnia was exhausting. Sit down, Anton Ivanovich. Yes, you are all soaked: would you like to have a drink and breakfast?
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It may be too late to dine: we will wait for our dear guest.
- Well, have a bite to eat. And then I, to be honest, had breakfast.
- Where did you do it?
- And at the crossroads at Marya Karpovna he stopped. After all, they had to pass by: more for the horse than for himself: he gave her a breath. Is it a joke to move twelve miles in the current heat! By the way, I ate there. Good,
10 that he did not obey: he did not stay, no matter how they kept him, otherwise a thunderstorm would have seized there for the whole day.
- What, how is Marya Karpovna doing?
- Thank God! bows to you.
- Thank you very much; and my daughter, Sofya Vasilievna, with her hubby, what?
- Nothing, mother; already the sixth child in the campaign. Weeks through two expect. They asked me to visit around that time. And in their own house, poverty is such that they would not even look. Tell me, would it be up to the children? so no:
20 right there!
- What do you!
- By God! in the chambers the jambs were all crooked; the floor just walks underfoot; flows through the roof. And there’s nothing to fix, but soup, cheesecakes and lamb will be served on the table - that’s all for you! But how diligently they call!
- There, for my Sashenka, she strove, such a crow!
- Where is she, mother, for such a falcon! I can't wait to take a look: tea, what a handsome man! I am something
30 I’m guessing, Anna Pavlovna: didn’t he get himself some princess or countess there, and isn’t he going to ask for your blessing and invite you to the wedding?
- What are you, Anton Ivanovich! said Anna Pavlovna, thrilled with joy.
- Right!
- Oh, my dear, God bless you! .. Yes! it was out of my mind: I wanted to tell you and forgot: I think, I think, what it is, it just spins on the tongue; that's after all, what good, so it would have passed. Don't have breakfast
Are you 40 before, or now to tell?
“It doesn’t matter, mother, even during breakfast: I won’t utter a single piece ... not a word, I mean.
“Well, then,” Anna Pavlovna began, when breakfast was brought and Anton Ivanovich sat down at the table, “and I see ...
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“But why don’t you yourself start eating?” asked Anton Ivanovich.
- AND! before food am I now? Even a piece will not go down my throat; I haven't even finished my cup of tea. - So I see in a dream that I seem to be sitting that way, and so, opposite me, Agrafena is standing with a tray. I say as if to her: “Well, they say, I say, do you have an empty tray, Agrafena?” - and she is silent, and she herself looks all at the door. “Oh, my mothers! - I think in a dream to myself, - what is it
10 fixed her eyes there? So I began to look ... I look: suddenly Sashenka comes in, so sad, came up to me and said, yes, as if in reality he says: “Goodbye, he says, mother, I’m going far, over there,” and pointed to the lake, – and more, he says, I will not come. “Where is it, my friend?” I ask, and my heart aches. He seems to be silent, but he looks at me so strangely and pitifully. "But where did you come from, my dear?" I feel like I'm asking again. And he, cordial, sighed and again pointed to the lake. “From the pool,” he said in a barely audible voice, “from
20 water". I was so shaking all over - and woke up. My pillow is full of tears; and in reality I can’t come to my senses; I sit on the bed, and I myself cry, and I fill up, cry. As she got up, she now lit a lamp in front of the Kazan Mother of God: perhaps She, our merciful intercessor, will save him from all troubles and misfortunes. Such a doubt has found, by God! I can't figure out what that means? Would something happen to him? The storm is...
- It's good, mother, to cry in a dream: for good! - said Anton Ivanovich, breaking an egg on a plate, - tomorrow
30 will certainly be.
- And I was thinking whether we should go after breakfast to the grove, to meet him; somehow would have dragged; yes, after all, what kind of dirt has suddenly become.
- No, today will not be: I have a sign!
At that moment, the distant sounds of a bell were heard on the wind and suddenly stopped. Anna Pavlovna held her breath.
– Ah! she said, easing her chest with a sigh, “and I was thinking…
40 Suddenly again.
- Oh my God! no bell? she said and rushed to the balcony.
- No, - answered Anton Ivanovich, - this is a foal grazing nearby with a bell around its neck: I saw
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expensive. I also scared him, otherwise I would have wandered into the rye. What do you not order to hobble?
Suddenly the bell rang as if under the very balcony and was filled with louder and louder.
- Ah, fathers! so it is: here, here it goes! It's him, he! - shouted Anna Pavlovna. - Ahah! Run, Anton Ivanovich! Where are people? Where is Agrafena? There is no one! .. as if he is going to someone else's house, my God!
She was completely lost. And the bell was ringing
10 as if in a room.
Anton Ivanovich jumped out from behind the table.
- He! he! - shouted Anton Ivanovich, - out and Yevsey on the goats! Where is your image, bread and salt? Give soon! What am I going to take out to him on the porch? How is it possible without bread and salt? there is a sign ... What a mess you have! nobody thought! But why are you yourself, Anna Pavlovna, are you standing, not going to meet you? Run faster!..
- I can not! - she said with difficulty, - her legs were paralyzed.

20 And with these words she sank into an armchair. Anton Ivanovich grabbed a piece of bread from the table, put it on a plate, put down a salt shaker, and was about to rush through the door.
“Nothing is ready! he grumbled.
But three footmen and two girls burst into the same doors towards him.
- It's coming! rides! I arrived! they shouted, pale, frightened, as if robbers had arrived.
Alexander followed them.
- Sashenka! you are my friend! .. - exclaimed Anna Pavlovna
30 and suddenly stopped and looked in bewilderment at Alexander.
- Where is Sasha? she asked.
- Yes, it's me, mama! he answered, kissing her hand.
- You? She looked at him intently. “You are exactly you, my friend!” she said and hugged him tightly. Then suddenly she looked at him again.
- What's wrong with you? Are you unwell? she asked anxiously, not releasing him from her embrace.
40 - Healthy, mama.
- Healthy! What happened to you, my dear? Is this how I let you go?
She pressed it to her heart and wept bitterly. She kissed him on the head, cheeks, eyes.
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- Where are your hairs? how silk were! - she said through tears, - her eyes shone like two stars; cheeks - blood with milk; all of you were like a bulk apple! To know, dashing people have exhausted, envied your beauty and my happiness! What was your uncle watching? And she gave it from hand to hand like a good person! Didn't know how to save the treasure! You are my dove!
The old woman wept and showered Alexander with caresses.
“It can be seen that tears in a dream are not good!” Anton thought.
10 Ivanych.
- What are you, mother, yelling over him, as if over the dead? - he whispered, - it's not good, there is a sign.
- Hello, Alexander Fedorych! - he said, - God also brought me to see you in this world.
Alexander silently gave him his hand. Anton Ivanovich went to see if everything had been dragged out of the wagon, then he began to call the servants to greet the master. But everyone was already crowding in the anteroom and in the passage. He put everyone in order and taught how to greet someone: who to kiss
20 at the master's hand, to whom the shoulder, to whom only the floor of the dress, and what to say at the same time. He completely drove one guy away, telling him: “Go ahead, wash your face and wipe your nose.”
Yevsey, girded with a belt, covered in dust, greeted the servants; she surrounded him. He gave St. Petersburg gifts: to someone a silver ring, to someone a birch snuffbox. Seeing Agrafena, he stopped as if petrified and looked at her in silence, with stupid delight. She glanced at him from the side, from under her brows, but immediately involuntarily betrayed herself: she laughed with joy, then
30 began to cry, but suddenly turned away and frowned.
- Why are you keeping silent? - she said, - what a blockhead: and does not say hello!
But he couldn't say anything. He approached her with the same stupid smile. She barely let him hug her.
“Brought a hard one,” she said angrily, looking at him furtively from time to time; but in her eyes and in her smile the greatest joy was expressed. “Tea, did the St. Petersburg people ... wind up you and the master there?” Vish, what a mustache he has grown!
40 He took a small paper box out of his pocket and gave it to her. There were bronze earrings. Then he took out a package from the bag, in which a large handkerchief was wrapped.
She snatched it up and nimbly thrust it into the closet without looking at it.
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"Show me the gifts, Agrafena Ivanovna," said some of the servants.
- Well, what is there to see? What hasn't been removed? Get out of here! What are you up to here? she shouted at them.
- And here's another! said Yevsey, handing her another package.
- Show me, show me! - Some have arrived.
Agrafena ripped open the paper, and several decks of played but still almost new cards fell out.
10 - I found something to bring! - said Agrafena, - do you think I only care what to play? how! Invented that: I will play with you!
She also hid the cards. An hour later Yevsey was again sitting in his old place, between the table and the stove.
- God! what peace! - he said, now squeezing, now stretching out his legs, - what's the matter here! And here, in St. Petersburg, life is simply hard labor! Is there something to eat, Agrafena Ivanovna? Nothing has been eaten since the last station.
“Are you out of your habit yet?” On the! You see
20 how he started; Apparently, you weren't fed at all there.
Alexander went through all the rooms, then through the garden, stopping at every bush, at every bench. His mother accompanied him. She, peering into his pale face, sighed, but was afraid to cry; she was frightened by Anton Ivanovich. She asked her son about life, but could not get the reason why he became thin, pale and where his hair had gone. She offered him food and drink, but he, refusing everything, said that he was tired from the road and wanted to sleep.
Anna Pavlovna looked to see if the bed was well made, scolded the girl, which was harsh, made her re-lay it with her, and did not leave until Alexander lay down. She went out on tiptoe, threatening people not to dare to speak and breathe aloud and go without boots. Then she ordered Yevsey to be sent to her. Agrafena came with him. Yevsey bowed at the lady's feet and kissed her hand.
- What happened to Sasha? she asked menacingly, - what did he look like, - huh?
40 Yevsey was silent.
- Why are you silent? - said Agrafena, - do you hear, the lady asks you?
- Why did he lose weight? - said Anna Pavlovna, - where did his hairs go?
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“I don’t know, madame! - said Yevsey, - lordly business!
- You can't know! What were you watching?
Yevsey did not know what to say, and remained silent.
- Found someone to believe, madam! - said Agrafena, looking lovingly at Yevsey, - it would be good for a man! What did you do there? Speak to the lady! Here it will be for you!
- Am I not zealous, madam! - said fearfully
10 Yevsey, looking first at the mistress, then at Agrafena, served faithfully, if you please ask Arkhipych ...
- Which Archipych?
- At the local janitor.
- See what's going on! Agrafena noted. - Why are you listening to him, ma'am! Lock him in a barn - that's what he would know!
“I’m ready not only for my masters to fulfill their master’s will,” continued Yevsey, “at least to die now!” I'll take the image off the wall...
20 - All of you are good in words! Anna Pavlovna said. - And how to do it, so you're not here! It can be seen that he looked after the master well: he allowed him, my dear, to lose his health! You watched! Here you will see me...
She threatened him.
“Didn’t I look, madame?” At the age of eight, only one shirt from the master's underwear disappeared, otherwise my worn-out ones are intact.
- Where did she disappear to? Anna Pavlovna asked angrily.
30 - Lost at the washerwoman. I then reported to Alexander Fedorych to deduct from her, but they said nothing.
“You see, the bastard,” observed Anna Pavlovna, “was seduced by some good underwear!
- How not to look! Yevsey continued. - May God grant everyone to do their job this way. They used to still deign to rest, and I run off to the bakery ...
What kind of buns did he eat?
- White, sir, good.
- I know that they are white; yes sweet?
40 - After all, a sort of pillar! - said Agrafena, - and he doesn’t know how to say a word, and also a Petersburger!
- Not at all, sir! - answered Yevsey, - Lenten.
- Lenten! Oh, you villain! murderer! robber! said Anna Pavlovna, blushing with anger.
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“Didn’t you think of some sweet buns to buy him?” but looked!
- Yes, madam, they did not order ...
- They didn't order it! It doesn't matter to him, my dear, no matter what you put in - he eats everything. And it didn't even occur to you? Have you forgotten that he ate all the sweet rolls here? Buy lean rolls! Is that right, did you take the money somewhere else? Here I am you! What else? speak...
"After they've had tea," continued Yevsey,
10 timid, - they will go to the post, and I for boots: I’ve been cleaning all morning, I’ll clean everything, sometimes three times; I'll take it off tonight and clean it up again. How, madam, I did not look: yes, I have never seen such boots from any of the gentlemen. Pyotr Ivanitch's are worse cleaned, even though there are three lackeys.
- Why is he like this? said Anna Pavlovna, softening somewhat.
- It must be from writing, madam.
- Did you write a lot?
- A lot, sir; everyday.
20 - What did he write? papers, or what?
- It must be papers, sir.
– Why didn’t you calm down?
- I calmed down, madam: “Don’t sit, they say, I say, Alexander Fedorych, if you please go for a walk: the weather is good, many gentlemen are walking. What is the writing? put a breast on: mama, they say, they will become angry ... "
- And what is he?
- “Go, they say, get out: you are a fool!”
- And indeed, a fool! said Agrafena.
Yevsey glanced at her at the same time, then again continued to look at the mistress.
- Well, didn’t uncle calm him down? Anna Pavlovna asked.
"Where to, ma'am!" they will come, but if they are found idle, they will pounce. “What do you say you don’t do anything? Here, they say, it's not a village, you have to work, they say, and not lie on your side! Everything, they say, is a dream! And then they choose...
- How will they choose?
- "Province ... they say" ... and they will go, and they will go ... so
40 scold that sometimes they would not listen.
- So that it was empty! said Anna Pavlovna, spitting. - They would shoot their people and scold them! What to appease, and he ... Lord my God, the King of Mercy! - she exclaimed, - who to rely on now,
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if your relatives are worse than a wild beast? The dog even takes care of its puppies, and then the uncle has exhausted his own nephew! And you, such a fool, could not tell your uncle that he would not deign to bark at the master like that, but would roll away. He would shout at his wife, such a scoundrel! You see, I found someone to scold: “Work, work!” Himself would have circled over the work! Dog, right, dog, God forgive me! Kholopa found work!
This was followed by silence.
10 - Has it been a long time since Sashenka became so thin? she asked afterwards.
“Three years now,” answered Yevsey, “Alexander Fedorych began to be painfully bored and took little food; suddenly began to lose weight, melted like a candle.
- Why did you miss it?
“God knows them, ma'am. Pyotr Ivanovich deigned to tell them something about it; I was listening, but surprisingly: I did not make out.
– What did he say?
Yevsey thought for a minute, apparently trying to remember something, and moved his lips.
- They called them something, but I forgot ...
Anna Pavlovna and Agrafena looked at him and waited impatiently for an answer.
“Well?” said Anna Pavlovna.
Yevsey was silent.
“Come on, spit it out, say something,” added Agrafena, “the lady is waiting.”
- Ra ... it seems, disappointed ... bathed ... - finally uttered
30 Yevsey.
Anna Pavlovna looked in bewilderment at Agrafena, Agrafena at Yevsey, Yevsey at both of them, and everyone was silent.
- How? Anna Pavlovna asked.
- Razo ... disappointed, just like that, sir, I remembered! Yevsey answered in a decisive voice.
– What kind of misfortune is this? God! illness, right? Anna Pavlovna asked melancholy.
“Ah, is that not spoiled, madam?” -
40 hastily said Agrafena.
Anna Pavlovna turned pale and spat.
- To you pip on the tongue! - she said. – Did he go to church?
Yevsey hesitated a little.
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“It’s impossible to say, madam, that they went painfully ...” he answered hesitantly, “it can almost be said that they didn’t go ... there, gentlemen, honor, they don’t go to church much ...
- That's why! said Anna Pavlovna with a sigh and crossed herself. – Apparently, only my prayers were not pleasing to God. The dream is not false: as if it had escaped from the pool, my dear!
Here came Anton Ivanovich.
“Dinner will get cold, Anna Pavlovna,” he said, “
10 Isn't it time to wake Alexander Fedorych?
“No, no, God forbid! - she answered, - he did not order himself to be woken up. “Eat, he says, alone: ​​I have no appetite; I'll sleep better, he says: sleep will strengthen me; unless I want to in the evening. So here's what you do, Anton Ivanovich: don't be angry with me, old woman: I'll go and light the lamp and pray while Sashenka is resting; I have no time for food; and you eat alone.
- All right, mother, all right, I will do it: rely on me.
20 - Yes, do a good deed, - she continued, - you are our friend, you love us so much, call Yevsey and ask in the way why Sashenka became thoughtful and thin and where did his hairs go? You are a man: it is more agile for you ... did they upset him there? after all, there are such villains in the world ... find out everything.
- All right, mother, all right: I will try, I will find out all the ins and outs. Send Yevsey to me while I'm having dinner - I'll do everything!
- Hello, Yevsey! he said, sitting down at the table and
30 plugging a napkin into a tie - how are you?
- Hello, sir. What is our life? bad-s. You've improved so much here.
Anton Ivanovich spat.
- Do not jinx it, brother: how long before sin? he added, and began to eat cabbage soup.
- Well, what are you doing there? - he asked.
- Yes, sir: it doesn’t hurt well.
“Tea, is the provisions good?” What did you eat?
- What? take jelly and cold in the shop
40 pie - that's lunch!
- How, in a shop? and your oven?
“We didn’t cook at home. There, unmarried gentlemen do not keep a table.
- What you! said Anton Ivanovich, putting down the spoon.
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- Right, sir: they also wore a gentleman from a tavern.
What a gypsy life! a! don't lose weight! Come on, have a drink!
- Thank you very much, sir! For your health!
Then silence followed. Anton Ivanovich ate.
- Why are there cucumbers? he asked, placing a cucumber on his plate.
- Forty kopecks tens.
- Is it full?
10 - By God, sir; why, sir, it’s shameful to say: sometimes pickles are brought from Moscow.
- Oh, my God! well! don't lose weight!
- Where can you see such a cucumber! Yevsey continued, pointing to one cucumber, “and you won’t see it in a dream!” trifle, rubbish; here they wouldn’t even look, but there the gentlemen are eating! In a rare house, sir, bread is baked. And this is there to store cabbage, salt beef, wet mushrooms - there is nothing in the plant.
Anton Ivanovich shook his head, but said nothing.
20 because his mouth was full.
- How? he asked, chewing.
- Everything is in the shop; and what is not in the shop, so right there somewhere in the sausage shop; but there is not, so in the confectionery; and if you don't have anything in a pastry shop, go to an English shop: the French have everything!
Silence.
- Well, how much are the piglets? asked Anton Ivanitch, taking almost half a piglet on a plate.
- I don't know, sir; did not buy: something expensive, ruble
30 two, it seems ...
- Ah ah ah! don't lose weight! such a cost!
- Their good gentlemen eat little: more and more officials.
Again silence.
- Well, how are you there: bad? asked Anton Ivanovich.
- And God forbid, how bad! Here is some kind of kvass, there is thinner beer; and from kvass it’s like boiling in the stomach all day long! Only one wax is good: wax is already,
40 and you won't see enough! and what a smell: I would have eaten it!
- What you!
- By God, sir.
Silence.
- Well, how is it? asked Anton Ivanovich, having chewed.